Mariah Carey has responded to a viral clip of a young rapper performing an interpolation of her 2005 hit single “Shake It Off.” The diva’s response has sent Twitter into a frenzy.
On Friday (May 7), the CEO of RNB Radar, Tommy Banks, shared a clip of Baltimore artist YTK’s music video for his song “Let It Off.” The track clearly samples “Shake It Off,” but opposed to singing about moving on from relationship woes, YTK’s version is about shooting guns.
“Matter fact come out your diamonds, your clothes/ We got nine-nine’s and four-four’s/Yeah, my nigga’s ten toes/ And you know I’m bout to let it off,” he raps over the Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox and Johnta Austin produced song.
In addition to sharing the visual, Banks issued a challenge to Mariah: “Mariah Carey has 24 hours to respond,” he tweeted. Questlove chimed in by sending a direct message to the multi-platinum singer. And within 24 hours, Ms. Carey responded. “How about y’all have 24 hours to respond to my lawyers,” she replied with a purple heart emoji and a GTFO meme of herself.
One tweeter wrote, “Mariah pls! It’s a hood bop! You know you love hood niggas!” “I hope you’re joking ‘cause that remix was fire,” another tweeted. Joan De Jesus tweeted, “The queen said what she said!!” “What I love about Mariah Carey is I have no idea [if] she’s either teasing or she’s serious here,” wrote another tweeter. The exchange quickly became a trending topic on the social media platform with over 34,000 tweets containing the “We Belong Together” songstress’ name.
Just to clarify the matter, Banks reiterated that Mariah “was joking.” “Please stop saying rude shit to her,” he tweeted. “She told that same joke to [Questlove] hours before she responded to the tweet and put us in contact with the people who can help us clear it! So it’s not a problem on her end.”
Meanwhile, YTK seemed shocked that Mariah replied. “The queen of R&B is in my mentions… It has not been 24hrs… lord,” he tweeted. Really just blew past all my goals for the year in one night.”
Check out the full version of YTK’s “Let It Off music video below: